Abstract:

This article is devoted to the similarities and differences of the concepts SPICY / OSTRYI / LA in the English, Russian and Chinese linguocultures with the aim of providing a better understanding of the worldviews of these nations. The research methods include conceptual-semantic and comparative analyses. Lexical meanings of the concept verbalizers are considered, as well as actively used phraseological units which contain these lexemes. The results prove that, firstly, general ideas about the spicy flavor coincide in the English and Chinese linguocultures, while in the Russian linguoculture certain contradiction has been observed; secondly, LA in the Chinese linguoculture is more frequently transferred to other cognitive domains than OSTRYI and SPICY in the Russian and English linguocultures; besides, SPICY / LA are associated with both positive and negative feelings, emotions, conditions and situations, while OSTRYI is not associated with any other phenomena. The results allow to present the semantic structures of these concepts from a comparative perspective and demonstrate the cultural values, perceptual experiences, associational patterns and verbalization processes of the English, Russian and Chinese nations.

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